Mushroom Management - Have you ever heard of mushroom management?
It has come to my attention that some of you are just simply brain dead.

Recently I was discussing motivation, production, organization and how loan officers fit into all of these things, and lo and behold an ugly head was reared that not just shocked me, but made me actually physically ill.

There have been hundreds of thousands of loan officers trained, or at least spoken to by hundreds of trainers, coaches and motivation type people over most of my lifetime. But I confess, I am ashamed to say, that one of the most basic sales techniques has gone undetected by so many of you that it is just astounding.

“How many of your loan officers call on how many referral sources?” I asked of a manager recently.

Well, some of my people call on about 5 and some of them call on more or less than that.”

And how are they doing?

Not real good. In fact they are really doing pretty pathetic. They don’t seem to be able to do some of the most basic things. They can’t seem to call on the referral source regularly. They get discouraged and seem to want to look for me to buy them leads or let them mine my personal database.

When you say ‘call on’, what do you mean?

I mean that they call them on the phone.

How often do they call a referral source on the phone?

I guess they call about once a week or every other week.

Ok, let me correct what I meant in my question to you. What I really mean is how often do your LO’s physically see, face to face, the people they want to refer business to them?

Not very often, but about once a month.

Well, now you’ve got my attention. Once a month. What the hell are they doing with the rest of their time? Do they at least call on their database of previous clients/ do they form relationships with small banks, set up affinity programs?

Some of them are working on those things, but I find that for the most of them, they really spend a lot of time seeming to structure deals.

Where are they getting these deals?

Most often, from leads I am buying for them.

“Those ungrateful ingrates” was my outburst. My blood started to really get hot, and for someone from the Mediterranean, that meant that my temperature was approaching about 108 degrees.

Are you able to monitor their daily actions? Do you get reports from them; do they let you know what the results of their contacts are?

No, not really, my company has me keeping up with so many of their emails, so many new rules on a daily basis, and my own production that needs to n be maintained, that I really haven’t been able to adequately do the things you ask of me.

Let me ask you one more question; is there a list of whom they call on? I know you told me that some of them actually are showing up at offices to see and present themselves. But have you asked them for a list of whom they are seeing.

No, but I will. Can I have that list emailed to you?

Sure. But before we hang up today, I know from our past talks that you really do know who most of your staff is calling on. Can we discuss that subject?

Sure

Well, tell me the name of one of the offices that they are calling on?

They are all calling on the local Keller Williams office.

How many agents are in that office?

About 80 or 90.

And in that office, how many really good producers do you think work there?

Well, if averages hold true, about 7 or 8. Maybe a couple of more than that, but those numbers are probably close.

And the big producers, are they doing business with any of your LO’s?

Oh, sure, they do business with all of our LO’s.

What do you mean?

Well, a couple of my LO’s call on the same producers in that office.

My ears started to burn, my antennae were up, I was starting to hear something I had never heard before in my life.

Do you mean that your LO’s are all calling on the same real estate agents? You don’t mean that do you?

Sure, we always have done that. It is the way we all work here in our area.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tell me I didn’t just hear what you said to me. Did you say that your LO’s all call on the same referral source, the same real-estate agent? No, tell me that you didn’t say that. Please tell me I heard you wrong.

No, Ralph, I did say that. It is the way we’ve always done business here. Why, what’s wrong with that? Here in our area, we’ve been doing that since I’ve been in the business, over 15 years. Why are you so upset?

Upset, upset, no that isn’t the word, not the emotion I’m feeling right now. The right thing I’m feeling right now is that my stomach just jumped through my mouth and is now on the ceiling of my office. I think I’m going to be ill.

Why, what’s wrong? What are you talking about?

What am I talking about, what are you talking about?

Ralph, that is the way we have always done business, do I have to say it again?

No, please don’t say it again. Do you know what confusion your people are causing? Do you know what mixed messages your people are sending to the real estate community? How is it possible for any one of your people to form a relationship with a Real estate agent when just after they talk to one of them, here comes another LO from the same company, the same office no less, and delivering another message asking for business and maybe saying something about the programs that you offer in a different way than the previous LO that has just left their desk. I would say that is a problem, a really big problem. In fact I think it’s a monumental problem.

We need to talk about this next week. But as my last request of today, I’m going to ask you to review a questionnaire I’m going to send out to my entire database of clients, I want to hear from them what they would do in this circumstance. Will you review a questionnaire if I put one together/

Sure, just send it to me.

Ok. I’ll call you next week. By the way, I’m having dinner with an old friend of mine that I’ve known about 35 yrs. He has been in every phase of the mortgage business and was last a manager of LO’s in North Jersey. Is it ok if I ask him his thoughts? I promise I won’t prejudice his thoughts. I promise.

Sure Ralph, ask away. I’m now very intrigued by what you are saying. I’d love to hear what others have to say. It doesn’t mean I’m going to change my mind or the way I do business, but I promise I will think about it.

I hung up the phone in utter shock. Called my son, asked his thoughts and he was as confused as I was. He firmly agreed with me. Well, that’s to be expected. But then I called one of my friends who is a regional manager for a national B/C lender.. He said I was giving good advice and should stick to my guns. As most of you know, that is not hard for me to do.

At dinner that night, I met my long time friend. Actually we hadn’t seen each other in years, but we had really known each other very well when we were both active in the daily demands of the business.

I posed my question and his response was direct and firm. “I would not even let the same lO call on the same office as any other LO from the same company. It is a no-brainer. Confusion will reign. How could you let that happen? Never, never!

So the next day I put together the following email and sent it out to about 50 people in my coaching clients address book.

After you read this please hit reply and just indicate # 1 or # 2. That is as simple as I can ask. I thank you in advance for your response.

IF YOU WERE THE MANAGER OF A GROUP OF LOAN OFFICERS (RETAIL ONLY), WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING PLANS OF ATTACK WOULD YOU ASCRIBE TO?

1-Each loan officer can/may call on any realtor/referral source they want, even if they are calling on (attempting to get business from) a referral source that is being called on by another LO from the same office?

OR

2- Each Loan officer is assigned to a specific realtor/referral source, which referral source is specific to each LO from the same office, and cannot be called on by another LO from the same office?

I received 26 responses. I was actually pretty pleased with the number of reactions.. But here is where the brain dead part comes in. 14 people chose # 2 and since I know you can do simple math, 12, yes 12 of the respondents said they thought #1 was the way to go. I even got a response that said “survival of the fittest.”

The following editorial comment is the one I liked best..

L/O's work hard to establish a relationship with realtors. If I allow a free for all in my office it would be WWIII.

Now here is what has happened since.  My client has caused his LO’s to make a list of the people they call on. He has seen how by having the same salesperson call on the same referral source, nothing good can come from it.

But further, here is what I was thinking about after I was able to convince each and every person that answered #1. I spent the time to call each one of them, and just like Howard Stern used to do when he got a letter from a detractor, I won over the respondent. They finally saw the light.

What I was thinking about is that all those LO’s go to all those motivational training sessions and never, never does any one of them actually address the basics of what people should do every day. B how to conduct their lives and what specifically a manger must do in order to be successful. Management is incredibly hard. Managing people is the most difficult. But we as motivational people must think about the basics of everyday life of our minions.

Your thoughts?

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